Body and Soul
by ElZacharie
Summary: When Barry finds two discarded and broken androids by the side of the road, he thinks nothing of it- until they start thinking for themselves. Barry/Lup, Kravitz/Taako
1. Chapter 1

All things considered, Harold "Barry" James Hallwinter did not lead an interesting life. Despite his degrees in astrophysics and engineering, Barry worked on what was basically an assembly line, fixing androids for a pretty good wage, though not enough to get him out of crippling debts. He lived in the crowded slums of the Undercity, stuffed into the basement of his building— not that he minded; he had the space for a workshop and didn't have to worry about making too much noise when he was working. He got it cheap, too, since he repaired the landlord's droids free of charge in exchange.

He lived alone in his workshop, repairing droids for the people of the Undercity when he wasn't on the assembly line. If the corporations caught wind of his repairs, he'd probably be swept away to some prison, forced to slave away on droids without hope of ever seeing daylight again. But the corps didn't care much about the dealings of the Undercity very much, and his cheap costs for repairs and buys made him a precious commodity to his neighbors, too much to rat him out for an easy meal.

It wasn't an easy or glamorous life, but it was his life.

* * *

On the way home from work, if it wasn't too dark, Barry would search the trash on the street and sometimes happen upon the random part for a droid, thrown out by an unknowing person, probably unable to hawk it off to a pawn shop. He'd take it home, repair it, then use it for something else. It was far easier than buying the parts themselves, as they were usually in far better condition than people expected.

It wasn't often people left entire droids out on the street.

Well, maybe "entire" wasn't the best word to use in this situation.

The two droids were elven in appearance, the skin not torn open almost unbelievably real. They were somewhat lithe, with hourglass figures and thick thighs, their bodies barely covered by scraps of clothing that were probably found in a dumpster.

But the damage to their bodies were almost grotesque. The one on the right was missing both its legs from the knees down, the remains carelessly tossed beside it. Its left eye was dangling by the circuits, desperately trying to move to look at its surroundings, but the gears in the socket spun uselessly. It had a good bit of hair torn off, leaving a large bald spot— he'd probably have to ask Leon if the Fantasy Costco had any extensions to replace it. The skin was carved open in jagged slices with what looked to dagger; no doubt it had been abused by teens looking for something to take their frustrations out on.

The one on the left was a little better off, but not by much. Its wrists and ankles were bent at awkward angles— probably to keep it from running off. The cuts in its body were more exploratory than that of its sibling, like that of an amateur surgeon, trying to expose its inner wiring. It stared wide eyed at Barry, a loose jaw trying to mouth words, but only coming up with strangled beeping— its audio processors were probably destroyed; those weren't easy or cheap to come by.

Barry crouched before them, taking in the damage. It was… bad, but not the worst he'd seen; he's brought what were basically scraps of metal back to life in the past. He'd have a hell of a time repairing them, but someone would pay good money for such realistic bots.

Attuning his stone of farspeech to his neighbor Magnus's frequency, Barry pushed what was left of the right elf's hair off its right eye, which stared back at him. The left bot stutteringly moved to the side, landing on the others' shoulder.

"Barry? Magnus is busy with a customer right now," came the voice of Magnus's wife, Julia, through the stone, the sound of barking in the background. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I was just wondering if I could get some, uh, assistance with… with two bots. I don't think I could carry them home by myself. I'm just a block down, near the garbage dump."

"They were thrown out? Everyone in the Undercity knows to come to— Johann! Down! Bad dog!— to come to you. Should I bring a cart or something?"

The right elf opened its mouth, which looked pretty difficult with the cuts on its mouth, and beeped. Great, that's two audio processors he'd have to find.

"That sounds good. Just… be prepared for what you see, okay? It's pretty gnarly."

She snorted. "I was in the governor's army, Barold—"

"Please don't call me that."

"—I think I can handle a few fucked up bots."

Julia arrived roughly five minutes later, a (probably stolen) cart in tow. The bots beeped almost distressingly when they were separated, only seeming to calm down when they were placed on top of each other. The two humans engaged small talk as they walked through the empty streets, mostly Julia telling Barry about what trouble her husband had recently gotten into.

When they got to their apartment building, Julia helped Barry take the droids downstairs, propping them up on his work table, which was the only clean surface in the workshop. She turned to him with a smile and said, "You know, when you finish these guys up, you could sell them to Mr. Kravitz, the mortician. I hear he's looking for a bot to help out at the funeral home, and he could probably use a companion, if you know what I mean."

When Barry gave her a confused look, she rolled her eyes and gestured at the bots on the table. "Look at them, Barry. They're practically alive! Everyone knows only sex droids get that kind of attention to detail."

Taking another look at them, he had to admit… she was right. Regular bots were far more stiff and doll like, but "companion" droids were, well, meant to simulate real beings, to bring comfort to their owners. A wealthy customer had donated it to him, as an extra tip for keeping his mouth shut, and he had tried to use it, but he was just too unnerved by it. They were built to be as life-like as possible, and that meant they tended to have the most sophisticated AI on the market. It was like owning a human, rather than a machine.

Barry may be a lonely bachelor, but he wasn't desperate, and quickly donated the bot to Avi, one of his other neighbors, who had been saving up for one. Avi had tried to pay him his savings for it, but, when Barry insisted it was a gift, the young man looked like he'd burst into tears.

"I'll… talk to Mr. Kravitz about what, uh, features he wants on them. Thanks for your help, Julia," he sighed, wiping his brow.

"I'm sure he won't mind if you get a few uses in, buddy," said Julia, cackling as she made her way through the maze of his workshop and out the door. "Have fun!"

Barry grimaced, turning towards the bots, who stared back him. "Don't mind her," he mumbled to the figures on his table, as he was prone to do when working with bots, "she's just being gross. I'll start fixing you guys up in the morning."

With that, Barry turned on his heel and turned off the lights, heading towards the section of the basement he cordoned off to be his apartment. Behind him, the bots turned their heads towards each other, their gears squealing from the effort, and beeped at each other through the rest of the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Setting his coffee on an end table he kept tucked near his work table, Barry yawned a good morning at the robots, gathering the materials he would need for the day. First and foremost, he would have to remove any broken components from within the bots that weren't necessary for function, then try to replace them. He had most of the components in his workshop already, besides the audio processors, but those could wait.

The sound of squealing motors and gears filtered through the workshop as the two droids followed his movements, beeping at random. At some point in the night, they had grabbed a blanket he'd left on the table and draped it over themselves— probably the one without legs; the other looked like it couldn't move its fingers properly. He was too tired to think too hard about why they would do that.

Setting his tools and a box of components next to the table, Barry picked up the legless bot and tossed it over his shoulder as gently as possible. Both the bots began beeping loudly, the bot in his arms trying to kick at him, and he sighed. "I'm _just_ moving you to another spot; I can't fix you guys without the space."

Somehow, that seemed to calm them down, at least a little bit. He sat the legless bot in a chair a few feet away, then returned to its sibling, laying it flat on the table. Its eyes flew around in panic, or so it seemed to him— he had a bad habit of anthropomorphizing these things, but he couldn't help it; companion droids could feel emotions, pleasure, and pain, unlike less sophisticated bots. He'd never understand why they were built like this— it just made them harder to work on.

For his own sake, Barry grabbed a cloth and laid it over the bot's eyes, who simply opened its mouth and let out a high pitched squeal. He quickly snatched it off, and the squealing stopped. "Alright, you don't like that, noted." He sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Just… don't start crying when your chest is open, okay?"

It was simple enough to open the chest, revealing the primary life components inside— whoever had cut the bot open had done so with surgical precision and hadn't bothered closing up after themselves. It was definitely the work of a black market seller; he had no doubt he'd probably end up with one of her originals on his table someday. It was missing most of its unnecessary parts, but, other than that and the broken limbs, it was in far better shape than the other bot.

It would take an hour or two to replace each component, and take all day for its systems to reboot and adapt to the new parts, then he'd have to mend the skin and see if he had to replace the motors in its wrists and ankles. He was no transmutation specialist, but he'd performed the cantrip enough times to get the skin back together without any noticeable tears.

As he worked in relative silence, the droids' ears swiveled towards the other and they beeped, as though they were having a conversation. They probably were— Barry had never bothered to learn binary, nor did he care to learn.

After mending the skin back together, he moved onto the wrists and ankles, feeling for pierced skin. Nothing was torn, it seemed— that meant the gears were still in place, if dislocated. That made his life a lot easier; he wouldn't need to remove the parts and replace them. Grabbing the bot's hand and wrist, he yanked upward and—

 _EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!_

Barry clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut as the bot let a piercing shriek, hearing the sounds of several barking dogs on the levels above. Oh boy, he'd be getting shit for that from his neighbors later. The shriek tapered off and he opened his eyes to a very pissed off looking elf glaring at him. He sighed and rubbed his temples— he could feel a migraine forming already. "I've still got three to go, can you please not scream like that?"

The bot crossed its arms over its chest and huffed.

"Can I… give you something to bite down on?"

It glanced at its sibling then slowly opened its mouth.

Barry thanked whatever god was listening and placed a clean towel in its mouth, then set back to work. The bot still screamed, but it was a lot quieter than the first scream. He made sure to make the process quick, taking a moment to massage the skin to make the gears were in their proper place before moving onto the next one. When he finished, he placed the droid back into the sitting position and returned its sibling next to it, taking a moment to cover them both with the blanket from earlier.

"Don't try walking yet; your motor processor was stolen, so if you try standing up you're just gonna hurt yourself," he told the bot as he cleaned up his station. "Tomorrow, when I get back from work, I'll start on your, uh, brother, I guess, and then we can work on teaching you to walk again."

The bot beeped again, taking its sibling's hand beneath the sheet and flashing it a smile, as if to say, _See? I'm alright._

Content with his work for the day, Barry shut off the lights to the workshop and made his way up the stairs, sparing one last glance the robots. Their eyes shined back at him through the darkness, and a shiver ran down his spine.

He needed to stop watching horror movies before bed.


	3. Chapter 3

"Mr. Bluejeans!" came a young man's voice from down the hallway, followed by hurried footsteps of shoes far too nice to belong to someone native to the Undercity. "Mrs. Burnsides was wondering where you were."

"It's Hallwinter, Angus, I've told you a million times," said Barry with a resigned sigh, turning to the owner of the voice.

A small tiefling with large, round glasses came to a stop before him, smiling sheepishly up at the human. "Sorry, sir, I just think Bluejeans comes off the tongue easier. Besides, nobody in the apartment building actually knows you as Hallwinter, sir— they all just give me weird looks when I call you that."

That's right— before he'd met the Burnsides and come out of his shell, Barry had been sort of the resident cryptid, known only by his blue jeans to his neighbors when he actually decided to venture out. Someone had given him the nickname one day, and it stuck; he had suspected it was the local cleric, Merle something-or-other with a long name, but the dwarf still thought his name was Billy when he dared to venture out with a five o'clock shadow.

"You said Julia was looking for me, Angus?"

"Right! She wanted me to ask you to come upstairs for tea. She said you were working on some new robots and that she thought you could take a break. That's when the dogs started going wild…"

"That was my fault, sorry," he muttered, then added, "I just need to run a few errands, then I'll come back for tea. Can you let her know?"

"She was quite adamant that you come immediately, but…" he worried at his lip. "I think she'll understand."

Barry smiled at the tiefling and mussed his hair fondly. "Thanks, kiddo. How goes your search, by the way?"

Angus McDonald had first come into Barry's life about two years ago, and had stuck hard, just like he did with everyone he met. He was Faerûn's self-proclaimed greatest detective, and certainly had the guts to back it up. Although Angus was born to the upper echelons of Capital City, he followed in his grandfather's footsteps and became a well known part of the Undercity, solving crimes for little to nothing. He took charge of cases the governor's men declared dead ends or simply refused to do, solving the majority of those he took on.

He and Barry had met during a case of a missing droid and a murder victim, in which the young tiefling had enlisted his help in studying a robotic limb that had been left at the scene. He'd been able to find the serial number of the bot, which helped lead to the arrest of what had been a rogue bot he'd actually jailbroken himself. (He still felt guilty about that; he hadn't known the victim personally— they were just another faceless customer— but he remembered the wild look in the droid's eyes, how the papers reported how it seemed to sob and beg for mercy when it was cornered by the police and Angus. It was easy for something to go wrong in the jailbreaking process, even if he was one of the best.)

Angus sighed deeply, breaking him from his reverie. "Mr. Taako is still missing, and nobody's even heard of the sister he mentions in his journals. It's like he's just disappeared of the face of the earth!"

Taako, right, the celebrity chef on TV. Sizzle It Up, he believed— he didn't actually watch TV; the one in his apartment was pretty much just gathering dust after he'd repaired it. After his show went off the air, Angus had tracked him down and begged him to give him lessons in magic. Barry remembered the child had promised to bring the chef and his sister to Magnus's birthday party, Just a week before the man had gone missing.

"I'm sure they'll show up eventually. You're the world's greatest detective, aren't you? They can't escape you for long."

Angus seemed to brighten at that and nodded. "You're right! I'm sure a wizard as incredible as Mr. Taako is sure to be just fine!"

Barry smiled at his optimism and said his goodbyes, then went on his way.

If anyone could find the missing chef, it was Angus.

* * *

The Fantasy Costco™ of the Undercity, a subset of the Fantasy Corporation, was, without a doubt, the weirdest place Barry had the displeasure of shopping at. Whereas most supermarkets in the Undercity left the magical dealings to its far better equipped black market vendors, the Fantasy Costco™ brought to the table technology, magical equipment, and a strange mixture of the two in a way that confounded and frustrated its competitors.

It's manager and lead salesman, a gnome warlock, had a deal struck up with the black market vendors to not infringe with competition, only selling items that couldn't be made by your local artificers or apothecarian. Barry was… Friends? Acquaintances?— with the only artificer who worked in the store, Leon, whose task it was to repair any magical items customers brought in. He wasn't a very busy man, so he also took care of restocking the store, and allowed loyal customers, like Barry, he supposed, to make requests.

Leon was leaning on the help desk like a bored student, cheek in hand, and perked up when he saw Barry approaching. "Hey, Barold, what can I do you for?"

"That's not my full— listen, Leon, do you guys have any audio processors in stock? Preferably for T190 models? I've got two bots in my shop, one with a missing processor and one broken, who need them."

The artificer hissed. "T190? That's… a pretty damn new model. We only stock audio processors for T180 and lower. How did you even get one of those? I hear they're not even on the public market yet down here."

Barry frowned; he didn't really keep up with new models, just read the model numbers and gave them to Leon. "I found them in a dump; they were really bad off— one was all cut up, and the other had its guts pulled."

"Seriously? Someone would pay big money to get those back."

He shrugged. "I was just gonna sell them to Kravitz, the funeral director."

"Whatever man, it's your decision. Anyways, you said you wanted T190 audio processors? Since we don't have them in stock, you'll have to—"

" _MAKE A DEAL!"_ a voice boomed next to Barry, which caused him to lose his balance and stumble to the side, followed by a puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared, a gnome stood on the countertop, grinning ear to ear, his tail waving sinisterly behind him.

"Sir, please, you don't need to do that," Leon coughed, waving the smoke away. "You're just wasting spell slots."

The warlock ignored him, instead opting to saunter down the counter to Barry, whose ears were still ring. "So, Misssssssssssster…" he looked Barry up and down, trying to figure out his last name. "Barold!"

He was coughing too hard say, _No, that's not my goddamn name, you damned rat._

"T190 audio processors are the name of the game, _hmmm_? Those are hard to come by! But ol' _Garfield_ is always up for a challenge. But what are you willin' to give ol' Garf in exchange?" The gnome's smile grew wider as he pretended to inspect his claws.

"I- I'm sure I can get a loan…" Barry managed choke out, gasping for air as the smoke finally cleared.

Garfield tsked. "Oh no, Garfield ain't lookin' for a handout. How about you give me… Nicholas's jean jacket?"

Barry's face twisted into a snarl. "Seriously? That old thing? It's not my fault he picked me over you for prom."

"And yet, you still have it?" He frowned and Garfield laughed. "Thought so. You can bring it in when the product itself comes in. Make sure to clean it, capiche?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. How long before you'll have it in stock?"

Garfield seemed to consider it for a moment. "I'd say… four weeks?"

Barry muttered a curse and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Fine, great, is that it?"

"It certainly is, Mr. Barold. Toodle-oo!"


	4. Chapter 4

After picking up a set of clothes for the bots and a new head of hair for the android with the missing eye ("Attaches to your head and grows like real hair!" the tags claimed), Barry beelined back to his apartment, avoiding the market. He'd only waste his time and money there, and Julia was waiting for him.

As he made his way up the stairs, not bothering to stop by his workshop to drop off his purchase, he passed by Avi's room, where a gentle violin song drifted from behind the door. That was… uncharacteristic of him, to say the least; he'd never known Avi to enjoy anything outside of punk rock. Maybe he was playing it for his companion droid? Bots were known to develop their own unique personalities after being jailbroken. He'd have to ask what the droid was like later.

Before Barry had even raised his fist to knock on the door, it flew open and he was practically tackled and crushed in a bear hug by the occupant.

"Barold, you old dog!" ("Not… my name…" he managed to wheeze out as the hug grew tighter.) "I haven't seen you since the party! Julia tells me you found some new bots the last night, huh? You should tell me about them!"

Magnus Burnsides was an absolute bear of a man who acted like a giant dog who thought it was still a lap dog. He was covered in scars, many of them reminding of him of the seams one would find on an older robot (he'd mentioned that once, and had only got a nervous laugh in reply). They'd met only a few years ago, when Julia and Magnus had first gotten married, but Magnus was the one to finally bring Barry out of his shell. He begged Barry to come to every minor social event, regardless if he actually wanted to. It was… actually really nice to be thought of like that, even if he rarely accepted the invites.

Magnus shepherded him inside, shooing away the dogs that bounded up to the door to smell him, and brought him to the living room, where Julia was setting out cups of tea on the coffee table. Barry sat down on one of Magnus's handmade chairs and accepted a cup with a small, "Thanks," proceeding to down it in as much honey as was socially acceptable.

"So? Tell me about the new bots!" said Magnus, leaning forward in his seat. He was among the few people that would actually stand to listen to him talk about his work, and could actually keep up with it. It was strange for a soldier-turned-carpenter to know the in's and out's of a robot, but Barry was thankful for a conversation partner who could keep up with him.

After taking a sip of tea and making sure it was to his liking, Barry cleared his throat and explained to Magnus the bots he'd found, the damage, and what he'd done so far. When he was finished, the carpenter looked thoughtful. "Are you sure T180 parts will do alright inside a T190? The corps aren't big on compatibility."

"The parts are my own custom designs. The bot was missing the majority of its parts, so it's likely whoever stole them probably took the blocks that prevent backwards compatibility with them. If there's any complications, the parts that were stolen will probably be back on the streets." Barry shrugged. "I don't mind spending a bit more money on parts if something goes wrong."

"Well, if you can't find the parts by yourself, just tell me and I'll get Bob to hook you up," Magnus says with a mischievous smile.

Julia tsked her husband and sat in his lap, a hand threading through his sideburns. "He doesn't know who Bob is, e'morko."

"It's high time he met him, Jules," he whispered, arms entwining her waist. "They'd get along great. Just think of what they could do together!"

She frowned, and Barry suddenly felt like he was intruding on something private. "We discussed this, Magnus. We _said_ we would wait."

"I'm _tired_ of waiting! The more time we spend dancing around the subject, the closer they get to finding him. Don't you want something better?"

"I do! Just… Now isn't the time."

"Then when is the time?! We've had a million chances, and we've let them all slip by!"

Barry coughed and stood up, setting his cup back on the coffee table. "I… should go. I've got work tomorrow, and I still have some things I need to do. Thank you for the tea, Julia."

"Barry, wait…" said Julia, standing up to stop him.

"I'll see you guys later, alright? Night." Julia opened her mouth to say something else, but he didn't bother waiting to hear what she would say before he darted out the door.

As he made his way back downstairs, he found Avi swaying in front of his door, cursing as he tried to figure out how his keys worked. "Avi? You doin' alright?" asked Barry as he approached.

Avi jumped, dropping his keys with another curse and bending to pick them up. "By the gods, Bluejeans—"

"You know that's not my real name, right?"

"— give a guy some warning! I, uh, just got off work."

Barry raised a brow at him. Avi fidgeted with his keys for a second. "And, uh… hanging out with the guys. After work. Doing guy things."

Another brow. Avi looked visibly distressed. "I drank water!"

"You said you were going to quit last week, Avi."

"Look, things have just… been a little stressful lately. I needed something to take off the edge."

"Didn't I already give you something meant specifically to take that edge off?"

The man went bright red. "I- I— shut up!" he cried when Barry started laughing.

Just then, the door opened and out peeked a droid made to look like a young elf with droopy eyes and long hair done up in a ponytail, looking annoyed until he saw Avi, who became even more upset.

"Johann!" Avi hissed. "What have I told you about answering the door?"

The bot blinked, opening the door wider to reveal itself— its body and skin reminded him of the bots sitting in his workshop; perhaps they were the same model? "You were late coming home; I was worried about you," it said in a surprisingly deep baritone voice, then nodded towards Barry. "Is he bothering you?"

"N- no, he's just a neighbor, remember? The one who gave you your upgrades?"

Johann scrutinized Barry for a moment, before a look of recognition crossed its face. "Oh. Right. Thank you."

Before Barry could reply, Avi was shoving the droid back into the apartment, giving the other man a hurried goodbye before slamming the door shut.

Well then.


	5. Chapter 5

The human was back. Taako's single eye followed him as he made his way down the stairs and towards the two of them, a plastic bag in hand. He began pulling a few items from it, mostly random tools and a wig, but what definitely interested him were the clothes he began shimmying onto Lup's naked form, then his own. They'd been relieved of their scraps of clothing their first night here, and Taako had been able to cover them both with a sheet that kept out the cold. He wasn't sure why he was doing this, but he appreciated it all the same.

After the human left to another part of the room that was blocked off— a living space, perhaps?— Lup's hand found the mangled mess that was his and squeezed gently, beeping at him that she was already getting feeling back into her legs. Once he was fixed, they could leave.

 _Once he was fixed._

There isn't much he remembers during their last few hours. He remembers stumbling into an abandoned warehouse in the south district, feet bleeding and stomachs growling. Dehydration had been setting in, but starvation had been encroaching for far longer. Lup had to practically drag him to a squatter's camp, long abandoned, and set him in a pile of blankets while she scavenged the camp for food.

He remembers dying, peacefully, in his sleep.

 _(Lup didn't get to go out so peacefully. She remembers a bat cracking against the side of her head when she rounded a corner, falling flat on the dirty concrete floor, watching as her blood poured out around her.)_

Then he woke up again.

He woke up in a candlelit room, surrounded by figures in black robes, in a body that wasn't his own. He could feel the gears turning inside him, the electricity coursing through his veins. But more than that, he could feel _power_ inside him. Pure, unadulterated magic.

And he couldn't control it.

And neither could Lup.

When one of the robed figures had tried to grab her, he'd gone up in flames immediately, screaming in pain. The room devolved into chaos, half the cultists (at least, he assumed) trying to put their friend out, the other trying to restrain them. Lup had set most of them on fire, but Taako had gotten one.

He doesn't know how it happened, only that it did. The spell was something he'd learned, but never cast before, that, in essence, banished someone to another dimension. In the most excruciating way possible.

Whenever he shut his eye, he could see the elven man's face as he disappeared, hear a woman scream, _Edward!,_ over and over and over and over—

 _You need to stop thinking so much, Koko,_ beeped Lup. _We're safe now. That's all that's all that matters now._

He tries to exhale, but all that comes out is a screeching noise where his lungs should be. Taako hears the man exclaim in surprise, running to the door he's certain is hidden behind a shelf and poking his head out to make sure they're alright. Lup's shoulders shake with silent laughter.

 _He's kinda cute, don't'cha think?_

His face tries to contort with disgust, but all he feels is pain. _Ew, Lulu. He's like, 500, at least._

 _Humans don't age like elves, dorkwad, you know that._

 _I know. He looks like he's 500 in human years._

 _He's not even that grey! Just a little around the temples… quite refined, if you ask me._

 _Ugh._ Taako rolls his eye at her. _Get away from me with that old man fucker attitude. I'll never get why you like them so much._

 _Hey, those old men played for many a meal. John was a cutie, for certain._

 _And he replaced you with a dwarf, for fuck's sake._

She shrugged, smirking. _I introduced them. John was a lot happier with him, the last time I heard from him. Besides, it was getting stale near the end. You can only hear "woe is me" for so long before it affects the sex._

 _Ew, ew. Do not need to hear about your sex life in any fashion, Lup._

 _He kept us fed. That's all he was to me._

They went silent for a long while.

 _Hey Koko?_

 _Yeah, bubbele?_

 _What do you think is gonna happen to us after we get back outside?_

 _What do you mean?_

 _Taako… What if they've already found our… our bodies?_

He… hadn't thought of that— no, he hadn't _wanted_ to think about that. He wasn't sure how much time had passed between dying and waking up in a robotic body, but he'd probably just assumed they'd be able to go back home and pick things up where they left off. Taako could go back to filming _Sizzle It Up_ and teaching Angus, and Lup could do whatever she did in her spare time.

They could've gotten away with an extravagant lie about going on vacation in some remote, sunny port town, gained a bit of weight and got some heavy reconstructive done. Perhaps they could get an artificer to craft them enchanted rings of disguise self, to make themselves resemble who they used to be.

 _I… I dunno._

 _I'm scared, Koko._

 _Me too, Lulu. But whatever happens, we've got each other. Even death can't separate us._

Lup squeezed his hand and grinned. _Damn right. We flipped the bird to that big queen bird, didn't we._

He would've laughed, but he figured it'd just bring back the human, and he was not looking forward to getting pulled into another conversation about how his beer gut showed he was an intelligent man or some bullshit. _Hell yeah, and we'll do it again if she ever tries again._

Another squeeze. Another long, long silence.

 _Hey Taako?_

 _I haven't died on you yet, Lup de loop. You don't have to start every single conversation with a "hey"._

 _Do you remember what it was like when we were dead?_

He tried to frown. Only one side of his mouth went down.

 _No. I just remember going to sleep, and waking up somewhere else._

 _I do. At least, I think I do. I remember dying, for sure. And I remember a light. Do you think that was us going to the astral plane?_

 _I'm gonna assume someone just shined a light in your eye. Just a shot in the dark, here._

 _Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence there, butthead._

 _You're welcome, dingus. I'm going to sleep now._

 _We don't need to sleep, though._

 _I know. It just feels nice. Now use your strong new hands to fetch the blanket and snuggle the fuck up._


	6. Chapter 6

p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanMorning came quickly, and Taako felt anxiety grip him tightly when he heard the human padding around in the other room. He remembered how Lup screamed yesterday, and she had minimal injuries. What would it feel like to have someone poking inside him, where all his organs would have been if he were still alive? There was no way to turn off feeling pain— believe him, he tried when those shark masked ruffians beat the daylights out of him. Oh gods, what if it felt worse this time? What if—/span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emTaako. Chill./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanThe human was making coffee; he could smell it from here./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emTaako./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanHe was humming, stirring his coffee as he padded towards them. Did he not know who they were? Did he not know there were breathing, living beings inside these husks?/span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emTAAKO!/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanTaako jumped, his neck shrieking when it whipped towards Lup, who was rubbing her thumb along the back of his hand./spanem Chill, Koko. Just meditate, okay?/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanHe had no time to reply when the human picked his sister up bridal style and carried her to the chair he'd been in yesterday, and laid him out flat on the table./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emYou can do this. You're Taako Tacco, for fuck's sake! /emspanhe thought to himself./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanOf course, that didn't stop him from letting out a tiny shriek when the human touched a cut on his arm. The human jumped and frowned at him disapprovingly, and Lup cackle-beeped from her chair./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"span"I just need to check if there's any torn wires in your cuts. Can you handle that?"/span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanTaako nodded as best he could./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"span"/spanemThank /emspanyou."/span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanThe human pulled back the skin from his cuts, prodding around inside them with a weird stick thing. More often than not, he would frown and mutter an incantation, and Taako could feel magic surge through the stick thing and then feeling would return to a small portion of his arm. By the end of an hour, the human got up to stretch, and Taako could move his right arm again./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emSee buddy? /emspansaid Lup. /spanemIt's not so bad!/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emCan it. Besides, you screamed so loud I could hear dogs barking./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emMy joints were dislocated!/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanThe human finished stretching and sat back down, turning his eyes on to repairing Taako's other arm./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanThroughout the day, the human talked to them as though he were venting to a stuffed toy, unable to reply but certainly real enough. He didn't say much interesting, mostly explaining what he was doing when he started on something new. Sometimes, he would talk about something that had happened recently, gossip that had made its way down the grapevine to him somehow./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanAround three o'clock, as his internal clock told him, Lup's motor processors must have finally kicked in, as she got up from her chair and began exploring the workshop. More often than not, the human would have to pause to snatch an item from her curious grasp, rubbing at his temples and pleading with her not to touch anything. After about two hours of milling about the workshop, she made her way into his private quarters and turned on a TV. The human looked exasperated at that, muttering something about anything that kept her out of his hair./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanAn hour after that, the man paused to eat, leaving Taako to lay on the workshop table. Experimentally, he began moving his limbs, testing them out. He hadn't had much use of them since he'd stumbled onto that garbage dump, after being beaten so badly by those gangers. Lup had just happened to be there, discarded by a scalper, and he thanked the gods he'd found her./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanAfter escaping from the house they'd awoken in— and burned down— they found they couldn't access their magic any longer. It wasn't as if they couldn't feel it coursing through their new veins— they could feel it stronger than ever— but trying to access it, it just fizzled at their fingertips, leaving them defenseless. Besides, who had ever heard of a bot who could cast magic./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanWhen the human returned, Lup trailed behind him, grabbing the chair and moving it so that she could hover above him. The human ignored them in favor of cutting open Taako's chest— which hurt like absolute hell, but he managed to keep it in— and pulling out broken components./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emHow's my favourite brother doin'?/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emOh, you know, same as ever. Just got a huge nerd excavating my chest cavity. How about you?/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanLup nodded, her demeanor turning serious. /spanemJust saw the news. They found the house. With the cultists./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanTaako made the best grimace he could manage. /spanemAnd?/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emThey're calling it a cultist ritual gone wrong. The bodies are too burnt up to be identified, but they found signs of necromancy./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emWell, that's obvious. We wouldn't be here gettin' fixed up by nerdlord if they hadn't./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emNo, Taako. They found signs of a ritual for creating a lich./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanIf he still had blood, it would've run cold by now. /spanemSo why did they take our souls?/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emI dunno. The militia captain refused to comment any further. They probably don't know much else./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emMaybe if we're lucky, they'll get Agnes on the case…/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emThey already have./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanHe let out a heavy sigh. The human glanced up at them with a curious look before turning back to his work. Lup ran a hand through his torn out hair./span/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emAny word on our bodies?/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emNone. They probably don't care enough about two vagrants in the Undercity being found in a dark hole. We'll be lucky if we have an obituary./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"emI'm sure /emspansomeone/spanem is still looking for us./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanLup pressed her forehead into Taako's. /spanemYeah. I'm sure they are. All those losers are probably falling apart at the seams 'cause we're not there to keep 'em together./em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.875px;"spanWith one last tug, the human ripped something out of Taako's chest and muttered, "emFi/em/spanemnally,"/emspan before sitting him up on the table, covering him with a blanket, and returning to his bedroom./span/p 


	7. Chapter 7

After begging the functional bot not to ruin his home, getting what he hoped was a beep of affirmation and a sassy eye roll with its arms crossed, Barry hurried out of the apartment and to the train station. The streets were crowded, as usual, with people rushing to work and vendors hawking their wares to early Candlenights shoppers. Usually, Barry would find time to stop in Magnus's shop, which was close to the train station, but he was pressed for time, having woken up late.

He barely made it to the platform in time, only being able to get on the train because he summoned mage hand to keep the doors open (and getting reprimanded by the PA system). A woman in a blue and white suit, wearing a blue cloak and holding a white oak staff, slipped on next to him, giving him a thankful smile as the train doors closed and the train lurched forward.

"You're Mr. Hallwinter, aren't you?" the woman whispered to him a few minutes into the ride, causing him to startle. "The one who fixes bots for the Undercity?"

Barry gave the woman a once over, frowning. She was definitely from the Skycity, the part of the Capital that still had natural greenery and housed the richest of the rich. He pegged her to be at least in her 50s; though prematurely white, she wore it well. She had kind brown eyes, but betrayed a hardness underneath.

"I might know of the guy," he muttered. He was a shit liar.

She smiled gently. "My name is Lucretia McDonald. If you happen to… _see him_ —" She hid a grin behind her hand, "I have come into possession of a bot who suffered damage during the jailbreaking process. He can get out sentences with great difficulty, but usually all he can say is his own name. I was hoping your friend could repair him. I'd be willing to pay handsomely, and, should he perform to my expectations, he may see my continued patronage."

"It sounds like his hard drive might have knocked around during the process," Barry muttered to himself, hand on his chin. "It's easy to do; the blocks are very close to the hard drive, and any amateur can knock it loose. If he's saying just his name, it probably got knocked around bad, or even damaged, but it sounds salvageable. Shouldn't take more than five hours to repair, at minimum."

"So you'll do it?"

"I- I mean, I'll pass on the, uh, information— aw, fuck it, you seem trustworthy. Fine, I'll do it. But I'm working on two bots right now. Just come in any time next week, I should have time off on Wednesday."

Lucretia grinned at him and shook his hand, then exchanged information with him. "Thank you, Mr. Hallwinter. You're doing me a great service. Oh! This seems to be my stop. I'll see you soon."

Barry watched her exit the train and walk away, a sense of dread settling in his stomach.

He hated dealing with the rich.

* * *

"Cutting it close there, Mr. Hallwinter," muttered the security guard, Boyland, as Barry checked in.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he grumbled, holding up his arms so he could be scanned for any dangerous magical items. "I had a late start."

"I won't tell, don't worry. Anyways, Killian and I are going to meet up for drinks at Collins' place, with her fiance and Magnus. You in?"

"Uh, no thank you. The last time I went out with you guys I almost got arrested. I don't Tom has forgiven me, either. Besides, I've got a, um, project at home that I still need to work on."

"Your loss, my dude. Anyways, you're clean. Head on through."

Miller Labs, founded by the late Maureen Miller, was the first and foremost in android technology, priding itself in "pushing the boundaries every day." Located in the Midcity, it outshined the other corporations that surrounded it with sleek chrome both inside and out. When Barry had first come to the lab, he'd been awed by how it looked, but, as the years wore on, he found himself growing disillusioned with the beauty. He was stuck on the bottom rungs, the assembly line, putting blocks in the heads of bots, despite the fact he was more than qualified to move up into another, more dignified, department.

As he made his way to the elevator, a halfling woman holding a box rushed in his direction, colliding into him with a yelp. They both fell on their asses, the box falling open and expelling its contents. "No, no, no!" she cried, desperately trying to scoop up whatever it was that had fallen out. "Mr. Lucas is gonna kill me if these are damaged!"

Eyeballs. They were eyeballs, Barry realized, picking one up off the ground. The one he held was a cat-like yellow, almost disgustingly realistic.

And perfect for the bot in his workshop.

When the halfling woman wasn't looking, he slipped the eyeball into his pants pocket and set on helping her gather the rest into the box, both of them offering apologies for not watching where they were going. The woman then hurried off, slipping easily through the crowd.

Barry touched the eyeball in his pocket, thanking the gods for his luck. It might not be the exact same color as the bot's other eye, but it was better than trying to salvage the one it already had. He may have had a rough start to the day, but things were finally starting to look up, bit by bit.


	8. Chapter 8

When Kravitz was told to expect a detective to contact him about his missing siblings, a very small tiefling in an outfit out of a detective's novel was most certainly not what he was expecting. The boy, upon seeing the surprised look, showed his badge and listed off his credentials with ease. Then, Kravitz invited him in, offered him a cup of tea, and apologized for the mess that was his apartment.

"Are you from Faerûn, sir? I can't place your accent," asked the detective (Angus, as he wished to be called), sitting atop an uncomfortable stool at his small round table, a notebook in front of him.

"Uh, no. I hail from Zakhara. My siblings and I moved from Huzuz as refugees during the beginning of the war. And no, they did not return," he added, sitting across from him. "They wouldn't leave their things behind."

Angus looked almost uncomfortable, pulling a manila folder from his satchel. "That's… that's the thing, Mr. Kravitz," he said, opening the file to a page of several gruesome pictures and portraits of random people. "I believe that your case is much bigger than we realized. Do you recognize the people in these photos?"

Kravitz took the pictures with hesitant hands, his eyes widening as he looked through them. His chest heaved and sweat beaded at his temple. He placed them back on the table, his sister's photo at the very top. "I- I do. They were friends of my siblings."

"How did they know these people?"

"I don't know. Work, I guess."

"Mr. Kravitz… We found the remains of these people in a mansion in the Skycity. We also found extraordinary traces of magic and the remains of what looked to be a ritual circle. I think your siblings were trying to… become liches."

Ducking his face into his hands, Kravitz hiccuped a sob, trying to calm down. He wasn't usually like this, but the stress had been mounting as of recently, and he just couldn't help it. Angus gave him time to catch his breath and wipe his eyes, looking at him with a pitiful expression.

"What about Edward? I don't see his picture anywhere."

"We couldn't find his body among the wreckage. We're not sure what happened to him, as we only found six bodies. Perhaps he's still alive."

He shook his head, feeling tears form once more. "No way. Edward and Lydia were inseparable; they'd rather die than live without the other."

"I'm… sorry you think that, sir, but we won't give up hope on him. I'm sure he'll turn up!"

"Th- thank you, detective. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Despite his words, his voice was flat and uninviting.

"I'm sorry, sir, but yes. Do you have any idea why your siblings would try to become liches? Have they practiced necromancy in the past?"

He sneered at the thought. "I'm a sanctioned priest of the Raven Queen, detective. If they were practicing necromancy, I would've been able to smell it on them. That kind of magic leaves a stench that can't be covered up."

"What about their 'friends'?"

He sniffed. "Yes. But it was an age old smell; the kind that comes from dabbling, but not committing. I didn't think they were problems. Most people who smell like that tend to reform quickly."

"You have experience with people like them?"

"Plenty. I've met half the ex-necromancers in the Undercity. They come to me seeking forgiveness."

"But you don't work in a temple."

"Funeral home, temple, same difference. It's easier to pretend you're visiting the dead than attending Necromancer's Anonymous."

Angus nodded. "What about your siblings? Why did they attempt the ritual?"

"I don't _know_ , detective," Kravitz snarled, then paused, taking a deep breath. "I haven't been in contact with my siblings for a very long time. Surely your file says that?"

The tiefling looked at him with surprise. "I- yes sir, it does. I was just— I assumed you would be able to take an educated guess at their motives, but it seems I was wrong. It's admirable that you would lie to protect them."

"I'm _not—_ "

"Please, sir, you don't need to explain yourself. I understand this is a touchy subject for you; it is for anyone." Angus closed his notebook and hopped of the chair, turning to face the stunned elf. "Since you don't want to cooperate any further, I may need to do some digging into your background, sir. If you change your mind, however, you have my frequency. Thank you for the tea!"

With that, the boy detective turned on his heel and left, closing the door gently behind him. Kravitz waited for his footsteps to fade away before standing up, a scythe materializing in his hands.

He had a visit to make.

* * *

As Angus stepped out onto the streets, his stone of farspeech began to chime. He fumbled with the files in his hands, trying to shove them back into his satchel, before picking up. "McDonald!"

"Hi honey," came the voice of his mother from the stone. "I finally found Hallwinter."

He beamed, weaving through the crowded streets. "Does that mean—?"

"Not yet. We're going to give him a test run, first, but I don't doubt he'll pass. We're giving him Davenport."

"Davenport?" he asked in surprise. "Are you sure he can handle that? Mr. Davenport has been broken for ten years now!"

"I have faith in him. It seems he already identified the problem; it took us several years to figure out, if you will recall."

Angus nodded, forgetting she couldn't see him. "I just spoke to Mr. Kravitz, about the lich case."

"And?"

"He knows far more than he's letting on. And his name is an alias. Mr. Kravitz didn't exist until at least 10 years ago."

"Well, it seems you have another mystery to solve, hmm?"

He beamed. "The farther into this case I go, the more interesting it gets!"

"Just be careful. You know we have eyes and ears all over; don't be afraid to use them."

"Of course, ma'am—"

"And make sure you're home in time for dinner."

Angus rolled his eyes, still smiling. "Yes, Madame Director."


	9. Chapter 9

The rest of the week goes by uneventfully— Barry has seen nor heard any mention of a rich snob looking for two missing droids, so he figures that he's in the clear on that front. When he's not dead tired from work, he tries to get work done on the bot still sitting on his table, little by little. It had sustained a lot of damage, more than he'd anticipated, and, with work in the way, things were slow-going. It didn't help he had to spend the first few days keeping an eye on its sibling.

Speaking of siblings, these two bots had the strangest bond he'd ever seen. He'd heard of jailbroken bots becoming close to each other, but these two seemed absolutely protective of each other. Whenever the functioning one got bored of the TV, it would hover over the other one, engaging it in conversation. At one point, he realized that the functioning one had actually dress the broken one in what he assumed to be a display of compassion. When he had been repairing the bot's eye and shaving its head to install its new hair, it had held the other's hand, squeezing gently whenever it let out a panicked noise.

By the start of the next week, both bots were up and running. Well, mostly. The bot that now had blonde hair and heterochromatic eyes, he nicknamed it One for now, suffered random spasms and had problems controlling its limbs at times— the spasms seemed to mark something wrong with its mainframe, but, when Barry had brought out the surgical tools, both it and its sibling had shrieked and hid, so fixing it seemed to be out of the question. He'd probably have to sell that one at a discount.

By the end of the second week, he learned something new about the bots: they like to cook.

It happened after work, after he picked up groceries to refill his dwindling supplies. The droids were sitting on his mostly unused couch, watching some strange cooking show when he starts putting away his groceries. It's not much— he liked to cook when he was younger, but he no longer had or made the time to cook like he used to. Bot One got off the couch and hovered over him, taking note of the things he'd bought. When he had stepped away to do something else in his workshop, he heard a clattering come from the kitchen and indignant beeping, prompting him to make sure the bots hadn't destroyed anything.

The bot was cooking.

Bot Two was splayed across the arms of the couch, watching as its sibling took ingredients out of his pantry and fridge and laid them out on the island counter. Barry leaned against the doorway, watching as it set to work with extreme focus. At times, Bot Two would beep something, and the other would either pause and change something about its recipe, or just beep something back at it.

Some time later, Bot One placed a well dressed turkey inside the oven (he'd planned to bake it for Magnus and Julia's Candlenights dinner, but oh well) and set a timer, then flopped back on the couch. Barry was still reeling— who had taught it to cook like that? Companion droids generally weren't taught to cook, because they tended to fuck things up for some reason manufacturers couldn't figure out. Perhaps it was a former owner? If that were the case, then why weren't they looking for the bot?

When the timer chimed, there came a loud knock from the door. Barry went to answer it and was surprised to find the boy detective behind it. "Angus? What are you doing out so late?"

"Well, sir, I was visiting Mr. Highchurch and Mr. Burnsides, so I thought I'd pop on by… Are you cooking something, sir?"

Barry glanced over his shoulder and said, "Uh, yeah. I made a turkey, but it's too big to eat by myself. How about you come downstairs and grab a few slices for the road?"

Angus beamed, looking like he might jump from happiness. "I'd love to, sir! Do you think I could see your workshop too?"

"I don't see why not," Barry said, moving to the side to let the child in. Once downstairs, he gave Angus a tour of his workshop, listening to the bot as it continued to move about his kitchen and giving the boy any explanations he wished about his tools. Finally, when it was time for Angus to leave, he guided him to the kitchen.

And everything went to hell.

For five terse seconds, Bot One locked eyes with Angus, slowly rounding the island to stand in front of him and crouch down. Although confused by this, neither Barry or Angus thought anything of this, and waited to see what it did next.

Tears began welling in its eyes— and, wow, he hadn't thought that was something bots could do— and it beeped at Angus, who gave Barry a worried look. It beeped again, gesturing at itself when it realized that the boy wasn't giving it the reaction it wanted.

"Uh, sir? Is something wrong with your bot?"

"I- I don't know! I- I've never seen it do this…"

Suddenly, Bot One grabbed Angus's shoulders, shaking him and beeping with ever increasing distress, as though it were screaming at him. Barry jumped into action, trying to pull the bot off the child, but it was no use; it wouldn't budge. The bot's voice was practically a shriek now, and its sibling jumped into action, helping Barry pull it off.

When Angus was released, he was frozen in place, tears pricking at his eyes as he stared at the distress robot. His tiny body was quaking, tail lifted straight into the air like a frightened cat, but made no move to run until Barry screamed at him to do so.

The bot screamed when Angus turned tail, its voice waking the neighbors, who peaked out their doors to see a young tiefling boy bolting out of the basement and through the front doors. Finally, it went limp in their arms, body shaking with sobs and hiccups. Bot Two beeped gently at it, taking it from Barry's arms and carrying it out into the workshop.

Barry stood in place for some time, trying to process what had happened. He'd never seen a bot react to anything like that— was their something wrong with its mainframe? Or… what if it was defective?


	10. Chapter 10

A tear between the planes opened before the Eternal Stockades, followed by Kravitz stepping through. He stared up at the fortress for some time, worrying his lip. Perhaps it would've been better to send another Reaper, like Riven or Theo. They were far better at interrogating the souls than he was; and to face his sister, of all people? What would she even be like, without her other brother at her side? And what would she think when she saw him, as real as the day he died?

Kravitz took a deep breath and squared his shoulders; now was not the time to get psyched out. He was in charge of finding out what had happened to the missing souls, and Lydia was the only lead he had so far. The kenku that took care of the grounds rushed to open the gates for him, bowing low as he passed. He nodded as he passed, swallowing the lump in his throat as he stepped through the threshold.

The eyes of forlorn spirits locked onto the reaper as he made his way through the fortress, many pushing against their prisons and wailing to be released. Others with more corporeal forms cursed him, bribed him, and claimed their innocence. He ignored them all; no one stayed within the fortress without reason.

Finally, Kravitz found the cell that held the soul of his sister, shared by those she had attempted the ritual with. She was curled in the corner, her form still bright and clear, unlike those of her companions, who'd already given up corporeal forms to the stockades, only ethereal figures that pressed against the bars and wailed as he approached. This was good— a bright, corporeal soul meant she had not yet given herself into the mental punishments of the stockades, and it would be far easier to wrangle information out of her.

The reaper let his physical form fade into that of his skeleton and rolled his shoulders. Showtime.

"Lydia Kravitz _,_ " he said in a deeply affected accent. "Approach the bars."

Lydia's form startled, staring at him with wide eyes before slowly standing up and stepping through the souls. "Y- yes?"

Kravitz waved his hand, and a large tome appeared before him, hovering in place as he searched her name. "Lydia Kravitz, you have been sentenced to… whew, ten centuries? A little harsh," he muttered to himself. "Ahem. You have been sentenced to ten centuries in the Eternal Stockades for the crimes of necromancy in the second degree. You stole two recently deceased souls before the Raven Queen's emissaries could collect them, then attempted to bind them to thralls. Are these crimes correct?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess, listen, where's my—?"

He held up a hand to silence her, ignoring the glare he received in return. "No questions unless they pertain to the case. Now, when you and your brother built the summoning circle, you changed it so that you may become liches, yes?"

Lydia crossed her arms and scowled. "Yes."

"And you planned on stealing a soul from the Astral Plane, creating a third lich?"

"Not… Not immediately."

He glanced up at her, motioning for her to continue.

"We only had two bodies available to bind to; the Grand Cleric didn't want to risk more than that. The plan was to… to bind our souls to a phylactery, then hide ourselves inside the bodies."

"These bodies being…"

"T190 Companion Bots; a gift from Miller Labs."

Kravitz wrote that down— Miller Labs was a hotspot of necromantic activity, but there was no solid evidence connecting to them to the recent flux of missing souls. Nothing that warranted a raid, certainly. "And why those specifically?"

"They are almost indistinguishable from a… a real body. A few mods here and there, and it's like you've never even died," Lydia admitted in a soft voice, looking away from him. "Once we were liches, Eddy and I… we were going to use the third droid to bring our brother back. We were triplets. We always called him the youngest— he was born an hour late, passing into the new year!" She laughed gently, as though any louder might break her.

"I am aware," Kravitz whispered, nearly breaking character. "Your brother is being tracked down as we are speaking. He was banished to another dimension to suffer for eternity, but we cannot allow his existence to continue regardless. Your cooperation is appreciated, Lydia. I will appeal to the Queen for a reduced sentence, but I cannot—"

" _Mr. Kravitz?_ "

Fuck.

The reaper fumbled for his stone of farspeech in his robes, the fire in his eye sockets flaring. Damn him, he knew he was forgetting something important. The boy detective's voice called his name impatiently until he finally found the stone and hissed, " _What is it?_ "

" _I- I was simply calling about a lead I may have found, sir! Is this a bad time?"_

He glanced back at Lydia, whose form was flickering as she whispered to herself. "Be quick about it. I'm working."

" _Well, sir, you mentioned that you deal with necromancers, right? I was wondering if you could check something out for me_."

" _Kravitz?_ " Lydia whimpered. "Your name is _Kravitz?_ "

" _There's a man by the name of Harold Hallwinter. He works on bots for a living—_ "

"I've been told about him, from a friend," he admitted, stepping further away from the cells. "I've been planning on buying one from him, to assist me at work."

" _Well, I'm afraid he's… he's dealing with something out of his league. Something of the dark arts, sort of. I was wondering if it wouldn't be too much for you to check on him, sir? It's not related to the case, but I'd rest easier knowing."_

Lydia began to sob, repeating his name.

" _Um, are you crying?_ "

"I'm with a client, detective. And I'll check him out as soon as possible. Thank you."

" _Thank you so much, sir! And—_ " He hung up.

"Keats, please, don't leave!" Lydia wailed, trying to grab at his robes. "Not again! We- we did this for you! It was all for you!"

Kravitz turned back towards her, letting her see his real face one last time, fighting to hold back his own tears. "But you shouldn't have."

His sister's wails echoed in his empty apartment even after he closed the rift between the planes.


	11. Chapter 11

Angus has the file on Mr. Kravitz spread along the dining table, idly eating a bowl of soup his mother had prepared for him earlier. It's long since gone cold, but he sips at it either way. His focus is on the files in front of him, trying to figure out where the priest of the Raven Queen had come from.

His only lead so far is the apparent siblings the file has him listed under: Keats, Edward, and Lydia. He only comes into a paper trail ten years ago, an exact year after the youngest triplet, Keats; otherwise, it's like the man didn't even exist at all, not even in pictures. When Angus had called him, some otherworldly voice had been crying that exact name— perhaps he'd interrupted a ritual that connected him to the other side? He'd definitely have to ask if he could get him in contact with the victims to understand more about the circumstances of their deaths.

Maybe he could ask him to reach Taako.

Angus quickly shoves that thought out of his mind; diviners and those like Mr. Kravitz were too unreliable in murder or missing person cases. Usually, the spirit in question could never be found, like they had never reached the other side at all. That was always an unpleasant thing to think about, though.

Instead, his mind wanders over to Mr. Hallwinter and his bots. How the odd-looking one seemed so distressed that he couldn't understand it, that he couldn't recognize it. He'd never seen a bot react like that, outside of defective jailbreaks. Usually, those tended to commit murder, but all it had done was shake him. Maybe—?

"Angus?" his mother, Lucretia, called gently from the entryway. "It's almost midnight, and you have school tomorrow. It's time to go to bed."

Angus jumped, then apologized, gathering up his files as Davenport, the gnome bot they took care of, cleared the rest of the table. His mind still swam with questions about the day's events as he walked through the grand halls of his grandfather's— no, his mansion now. He'd left it all to him, and not his mother, who refused follow in her own mother's footsteps and fell in love with a commoner.

She never talked about it, or who his father was, but he had read it in her journals: his father was a man named Magnus— no relation to the Burnsides family in the Undercity— who died in the Relic War years ago. He was a brave man, a reckless man, who lead the charge that ultimately ended the war, though the history books never spoke about him for some reason. Nobody really like talking about the war— too many people died lusting for holy artifacts that were ultimately destroyed because of their power. Of course, some people said that some still existed, used in the technology today.

Angus's teachers laughed when he'd brought that up with them— Lucretia simply refused to talk about it.

"A penny for your thoughts, Ango?" Lucretia asked as the climbed the stairs up to his room. "I hear you had an eventful day."

He worried his lip. "I'm… worried. About Mr. Hallwinter."

"And why's that."

"... What if he can't fix Davenport?"

She hummed. "Is that really what's on your mind?"

"I mean, sorta."

"I have the utmost faith in him. Magnus and Julia say he's the best there is. He's sure to crack the code."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then we find someone else. And so on. We will figure out what is going on with these new bots, I promise you, Angus."

They stopped in front of his door. Angus turned towards his mother, studying her face. "You… know more than you're telling me, don't you?"

Lucretia frowned. He hated when she frowned— she looked older than she really was when she did. "Angus…"

"No, ma'am," Angus squeaked, puffing out his chest. "I'm done with the lies, starting now. Your journals are mostly blacked out— what aren't you telling me?"

She paled, her frown quickly turning into surprise and rage. "You— you went through my journals?!"

"There's so much you don't tell me!" he yelled. He felt like a child throwing a fit, but he couldn't help it. He was sick of the lies, the going behind his back. He was her only son, even if he hadn't been in his life until after grandpa died; he deserved to know what she knew! "How can I help you if you all keep me in the dark?!"

Lucretia balked a bit, but didn't back down. "You're too young to understand right now, Angus," she said in a quiet, but stern voice. "Someday, when you're older, I'll explain everything."

"You said that before! I am older, and I can understand!" he screamed, tears pricking at his eyes. "... Why don't you trust me?"

"Oh, darling, no…" She stepped forward, arms outstretched, but he backed away, glaring up at her. "It's… it's not that I don't trust you…"

"Then tell me everything."

Lucretia swallowed, looking in his expression for any sign that maybe he didn't want to hear it, but she could find none. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

"Maybe… Maybe we should sit down. It's a long story. And it begins ten years ago."


	12. Chapter 12

After the capital-F-Fiasco with Angus, Taako had been pouting nonstop. He moped about the human's kitchen, using what little magic he had recently been able to access to do self-pity cooking. Not like they could actually eat, but Lup knew better than to stop him; besides it's not like the human did much cooking, and he seemed to appreciate having well-cooked food greatly.

Throughout the four weeks they stayed with him, the human continued his repairs on their new bodies whenever a new glitch popped up, which, in Taako's case, happened often. When Taako was on the table, Lup would hover over the human's shoulder as he worked; part curiousity, part protectiveness for her sibling. He would sometimes look over his shoulder when Taako made a particularly distressed noise and flash a tired smile at her and...

And by the gods, it set her circuits on fire.

Her brother didn't take to the human like she did; he tolerated his presence, but would sometimes make remarks about him, mostly directed at his appearance, and Lup couldn't help but jump to his defense. Taako then started teasing her, poking fun at how she always seemed to develop crushes on older human men.

It wasn't as though elves didn't— hadn't propositioned her for her services in the past; she just liked older humans more. Elves her age were still young, but believed themselves to know everything, and to be far above humans. Humans, as they neared the middle of their tiny lifespans, often became a lot wiser than elves, like they had more knowledge acquired by virtue of not living for almost a millennia.

 _You're thinking loud again, Lulu. Bronze for your thoughts?_

Lup looked up from the book she'd long since stopped reading, draped over the armchair she'd designated as her own by now. _Thinkin' about humans, I guess,_ she beeped, twisting around to look at him. _About my old life. About all that we lost._

He snorted, focusing on preparing a chicken roast. _I lost ten years with Sazed. He almost ruined my show, and made me forget you. This? This ain't nothin'._

 _Says the shakran who's been pouting for days now,_ she teased, sticking her tongue out at him. Still, it always unnerved her to hear about the life he lead when she had left for the war; Sazed, one of Taako's exes, had knocked him around so badly he had ended up with some pretty bad amnesia. Though he had recovered and built a name for himself with his up and coming TV show, it always pained Lup to see those journals he'd kept to keep track of his memories during his time alone.

 _Look, it was a moment of weakness. I… just miss my magic boy._

Lup climbed out of the chair and crossed over to Taako, hugging him close and kissing his temple. _We'll get through this, Koko. I promise._

Whatever Taako wanted to say next was interrupted by the sound of the basement door opening and the human's footsteps coming down the stairs. Lup unwrapped herself from her brother, patting his shoulder.

The human was carrying a bag and looking very excited as he gently took Lup's shoulder— he probably expected Taako wished to finish cooking— and guided her to the workshop table. She always hated when she had to have her new body cut open again— it always brought memories back of the scalper— but it was worth feeling a little more living after the fact.

The knife cut carefully into her skin, and she tried not to scream again.

For Taako's sake.

* * *

Kravitz adjusted his tie and took a deep breath, inhaling the awful smell of necromancy before him. It wasn't… _evil_ necromancy, per se. The smells came in different forms, based on intention and usage, and this smell was probably the rosiest of all of them, and the rarest. It was the smell of someone who practiced necromancy simply to learn, to study.

And so, the reaper knocked on the door of Harold James Hallwinter.

There was a shout from downstairs, the sound of falling objects, and cursing. Kravitz held back a smile, trying to keep his professional demeanor in check. One of his old contacts, Julia, had recommended he take in one of the man's bots to take care of the temple/funeral home when he was out on an excursion for his Queen. Besides, he had no shortage of coin to spare for one.

A harried, balding man opened the door, his glasses askew and shirt covered in grease stains. "Mr. Kravitz!" he said, gasping for air. "I- I didn't expect you to be- be here so soon!"

Kravitz flashed a tight smile, tugging on a skull cufflink. "You said come any time, if I recall."

"Right, right, I- I said that," he muttered to himself, stepping aside. "Please, come inside. I was just working on one of the bots that I… acquired a bit ago."

Kravitz followed the stout man down the creaking stairs, listening to him give him a sales pitch about his bots. They seemed quite competent so far— a bot that was capable of making something better than takeout was incredibly tempting, too.

"Mr. Harold, if I may—"

"Barry is just fine. My mother actually wanted me to go by Sildar, my father's name, but it was too close to my, well, dead name, pun not intended in present company," he added nervously, waiting for Kravitz at the bottom step.

"Right. Mr. Barry, you said these bots were having some technical problems?"

"Uh, yeah, they have a few more repairs to do, especially the bot that cooks. It suffered some pretty damaged when I found it, like it'd been knocked around by a gang of kids. It has some issues with mobility, tics, the like, but all that needs to be done for either of them is one last check-up after installing the audio processors, then they'll be good to go. They, uh, won't let me crack open their mainframes to get at the underlying problems, but it shouldn't be detrimental."

Kravitz nodded, walking side-by-side with the engineer towards a workshop table with a body lying on it. "As long as the problems don't ruin a loved one's face, I won't force it under the knife."

"I'm sure it'll be happy to hear that. Oh, this one isn't the one with the problems, really, but it's the one I started first. The other one is over in the living area," he said, pointing towards a blocked off area. "I let them run around if they want."

And out stepped an elven bot with brightest glowing soul Kravitz had ever seen.


	13. Chapter 13

They would leave by midnight.

Lup had planned the escape plan long ago; they'd steal anything they could carry in the duffel bags the human kept lying around, full of valuables they could pawn off any tools they needed to fix themselves. They'd find an artificer to craft them rings of disguise self, or steal some trying. If their bodies hadn't been found yet, they'd just give them (most of) the truth.

They would not be slaves again.

Lup took care of finding things while Taako looted the human's things, wincing when something seemed to fall too loudly into the bags, but he didn't wake up. Heavy sleeper, it seemed, thank the gods.

It took the better part of an hour to get everything together, including a goose hunt of a blueprint for their systems, just in case. Of course, the asshole kept barely legible notes, but it was better than nothing. They snatched it up and headed for the stairs.

That's when shit hit the fan. Like it always did.

Lup felt something tug her, like a grown man pulling at her entire body. She slammed against something to her right with a shriek; trying to pry herself off only forced her closer to whatever it was holding her, making it even harder to move. She could see Taako stop in his tracks then start forward to help her, only to pause like a deer in the hunter's sights when he heard the sound of the human's footsteps and quiet cursing.

" _Hide!"_ she hissed. Taako glanced between her and a nearby closet, making up his mind, before finally dropping his bag and darting inside.

Perhaps she would have thought the human's bedhead and tired expression looked cute any other time, but, right now, it only made her artificial heart pump faster. He crossed his arms in front of her with a sigh, squinting as he scanned her for damage. Lup grit her teeth and swallowed, waiting patiently for the time to strike.

The human reached behind her and turned a dial; she could the pressure holding her down lessen, but not enough to let go of her. The way the dial was positioned meant there was no way that Taako could help her out if they got caught again. Damn it, why did this human have to be prepared?

"There we go," he muttered, suppressing a yawn as he took her by the waist and began tugging her off. "Should've warned you about the magnet, huh?"

Lup lunged forward as soon as one arm was free of the magnetic pull, her hand colliding with the right side of his face.

She only meant to push him away.

His scream told her she did otherwise.

 **(*TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND GORE*)**

It felt like it happened in slow motion, the way she felt his skin melt under her hand, falling on top of him as he screamed and writhed in pain, trying to push her off. She could hear Taako's gasp from the closet, could practically see him covering his mouth to keep quiet, fake tears rolling down his cheeks.

The human shoved her to the side and crawled towards the stairs, sobbing as he forced himself to his feet and up the steps. When he looked back at her, halfway up, she wished she had the ability to puke.

His face was a mess of sinew, skin barely hanging on. His eye had taken the worst of the damage (if he had only worn his glasses, maybe it would have been spared), practically melted in its socket. Lup could see bone beneath charred muscle, just barely, and a hint of teeth.

 **(*END TRIGGER WARNING*)**

She'd done this to him.

 _Gods, he was trying to help us!_ she realized with horrifying clarity. _He hadn't known better! He just thought they were things, not living beings!_

Lup began to sob and curl in on herself, the slamming door above shaking her down to her bones.

* * *

"Dear god, Bluejeans, what happened to you?" Merle grumbled, inspecting the damage. "This… this ain't natural."

 _Evocation user,_ Barry signed lazily to Magnus, who hovered over the cleric's shoulder. _They didn't mean to hurt me, I think._

Barry had practically dragged his way to the nearest occupied apartment two flights up— everyone else worked graveyard, for the most part— where he found Magnus whittling a duck in his living room, having slammed his hand against the door. Magnus then carried him to Merle, who had to force a sedative down his throat to get him to stop screaming and squirming whenever he tried to touch his wound.

"He says an evocation user did it," said Magnus.

Merle grunted. "Course it was. Most of the patients I get were hit by a stray fireball or something. You'd think the governor would put harder restrictions on who can practice."

The old cleric pressed his palm against Barry's face, channeling magic through into his skin. It was an odd sensation, feeling his skin weave itself back together. It still hurt like hell, but at least he'd be able to move his jaw without feeling like it was being ripped off at the hinges.

"There we go," said Merle, wrapping a bandage around his face. "Now, I ain't the best cleric out there—" Magnus snorted. "— but that should be good enough. It'll scar, and you'll have some problems in that eye, but you won't have to worry about infection. If you want an eyepatch for later, I've got some in my dresser you can take. I don't use them as much anymore."

"No thanks," Barry drawled, wincing a little and working his jaw for a moment.

"You good there, buddy?" Magnus wrung his hands together, like a nervous child. "Want me to carry you back to your place?"

"Nooo… Don't wanna… go back there…" Fuck, the sedative was starting to make him drowsy.

"It's better if he stays here under surveillance, for now," Merle announced, cleaning up his supplies and hopping off the chair. "Bring Billy to the guest room, on your left."

"Aye aye, captain," Magnus said, picking Barry up bridal style and carrying him out. The engineer giggled, head drooping onto the other man's chest.

"You good there, buddy?"

"Yeeaaahhhhhhh…"

"Merle gave you the good stuff, huh?" Barry nodded as Magnus tucked him in. "Yeah, I had that before, too. Got it during the war; I think I crawled into Merle's cot and snuggled him! The start of a beautiful friendship, if you ask me. He'd never admit it happened though."

"Uh-huh…"

"Night buddy. Feel better. There's big things comin' in the future, and I want you to be there."

The lights flickered off, and Barry was alone.

"... Wait, wha—?"


	14. Chapter 14

[So um. Forgot to post this chapter. Lmao. If you want the most consistent updates, you'll wanna check this fic out on AO3, under the same name and psuedonym]

* * *

As Kravitz made his way through the crowded streets of the city, his entire being seemed to vibrate with excitement. That bot… That bot was the answer to _all_ his problems…

The Raven Queen had sent out her favourite bounty hunter for a single reason: to find where the souls of the dead were being hidden. In the past decade, thousands of souls had disappeared right under the Queen and her reapers' noses without even a trace. Kravitz had suspected necromancers, at first, but there was no proof, no smell of it when he tracked down the bodies of the missing souls.

When a missing soul did appear, they were often insane or simply unable to tell what had happened to them— those were the worst; they never understood that they had died in the first place. At least the insane ones had lead them to necromancers, although they had no connection to the disappearances.

But _this,_ paired with necromancers attempting to bind themselves to an android body, was an absolute _breakthrough_.

The bot had a _soul of a dead man._

Taako Taaco had died two months, one day, 12 hours, and 23 seconds ago. He had not reached the Astral Plane, same as his sister, who had died shortly after. It was supposed to be a clean and cut case; the reaper had been following them for hours before their death, keeping a close eye on them, and they'd slipped right from under their noses.

"Um, excuse me, sir," came a nasally voice from behind him. "You dropped this."

Kravitz turned and blinked down at the shaky hand before him, holding his watch. "Oh! Thank you; most people would have simply stolen it," he said, reaching out to take it.

Upon the graze of his fingertips against the stranger's bare hand, Kravitz suddenly cried out and flinched away, as though he'd been burned suddenly. If he hadn't stuffed his hand back into his pocket with watch in hand, the entire car would've seen how the elf's hand had seemingly disintegrated into bone.

"Are you okay?" asked the nasal voiced stranger, reaching out to touch him. "Did I shock you? Oh jeez, I always do that, I- I'm so sorry—"

The voice continued on like that as Kravitz reeled from the pain, forcing flesh back over his bones. As a being of radiant energy, he was vulnerable to necrotic energies, but to be affected like _this_ in his living form… What the hell were they?

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just… surprised me, is all. What did you say your name was?"

"Lucas. Lucas Miller. Oh! This is my stop! Um, try not to lose that watch anymore, stranger!"

As Kravitz watched the man brush by and run out onto platform, he began to wonder what he'd gotten himself into with this bounty.

* * *

The silence of the library was broken suddenly by the sound of Lucretia's stone of farspeech ringing, making the two of them jump. The older woman sighed and placed the files she'd gathered in front of Angus before answering the call. "Director speaking."

"Lucy, we got a problem," said Merle, his voice barely a whisper. "It's that Bluejeans guy."

"Hallwinter?" Angus's ears perked up as he listened in, eyes focused on the text before him (his mother did not care if he knew about her secret organization, but he at least had the decency to pretend he wasn't listening. "What's happened? Is everything alright?"

"It's fine— sorta. If you… Consider half his face burned off alright."

"Wait, what?!" Angus shouted. "Wh— sir, what happened?!"

"Aw, jeez— seriously, Lucretia? You're letting the kid listen to this?"

"Angus has proven himself to be a valuable asset to our cause and—"

"Hi Ango!" interrupted Magnus. "Jules is asleep right now, but she wanted to know if you and Lucretia wanted to come over for Candlenights?"

"Maggie, I love ya, but—"

"We'd be happy to come, Magnus. I haven't heard from her lately, has she been busy?"

"Sirs, can we please get back on track?" Angus finally interjected. "What happened to Barry?"

"Right, right. Billy—"

"Barry," the three of them said in unison.

"— had his face… well, melted by fire. More specifically, by magic from a very powerful evocation user. It couldn't've been more than a second's touch, but he won't have any sight in his right eye after this, and the scarring will take a better cleric than I to get rid of."

The four of them stood by in silence. Angus could see his mother worrying her lip, the gears turning in his head. "Will this… interfere with his ability to repair Davenport?"

"Momma!" Angus gasped, but neither Merle nor Magnus seemed perturbed by it.

"We can't know for sure, but the fire didn't hit any of his brain, so with a little time to learn to get around with one eye, he should be able to get the captain back in working order."

That was right; mother had told Angus that Davenport was the first bot they ever built to… to have a human soul. Something had gone wrong in his head, at some point, and now all he was good at was acting like a parrot and abiding by his butler programming.

"Thank the gods. He's our last option. I fear Lucas might be going into the next step of his plan soon— I've lost contact with Noelle."

Noelle, Noelle… right, Lucas's assistant and momma's spy.

"I can't say how long it'll take to get Bluejeans back in working order, but I'll try my best, Lucy. I swear."


	15. Chapter 15

Thanks to the miracle of black market drugs and spells, Barry took far less time recovering than he would have on his own or in a proper hospital. He spent most of his time in and out of consciousness, unable to remember his slurred words or the people passing through, coming to check up on him. The first two weeks were like a dreamless sleep from all the drugs in his system, until he could finally be eased off the medication and come back fully into consciousness to begin physical therapy.

Soon after he'd gain consciousness, Barry found himself swarmed by people, hugging and, in some cases, crying. Some were simply work acquaintances who'd happened to hear about the accident through word of mouth, stopping by to drop off a card the other workers had made for him. The robot cat with googly eyes on the front was cute, but he prefered to keep it in the bedside table than have it stare at him at all hours of the day. Avi was keeping watch on the bots downstairs, switching off with Julia or his neighbors, two ladies/girlfriends named Carey and Killian. Based on reports, the bots would scurry away from them when they first started checking on them, refusing to speak— though Julia assured him he heard them whispering to each other in Elvish, thinking she couldn't understand them, but it was too low for her to actually understand them. By the end of the first month, the bots no longer ran away from them, but refused to interact with them when not forced, unless the male bot wished to give them food he had made, since there was no one else around to eat it.

"That boy is a talented one, let me tell you that. I had to get my entire wardrobe tailored to keep up with what he's giving me!" said Julia during one visit, patting her swollen stomach. "Of course, there's the possibility I'm eating for two," she added with a wink.

"That's wonderful, but," Barry managed to slur and drawl out, his jaw still sore from speech therapy, "I thought Magnus was infertile?"

"He is, but we decided to go to a sperm bank. No results yet, but here's hoping!"

For the most part, though, his days were unremarkable, left only with Merle and his unsettlingly large amount of plants in his guest room. He busied himself with sleep, for the most part, but, on the dawn of his third month being bedridden, decided to turn on the TV Merle had provided him with.

The first thing that came on that wasn't static was a cooking channel, so Barry decided that was good enough and threw the remote on the bedside table. There was some fidgety tiefling chef being interviewed by a generic blonde woman, a montage of a high elf playing on a green screened TV just behind them.

"So, Sazed, you worked _tirelessly_ to get Sizzle It Up on the air, is that correct?"

"Well, yes, but it wasn't just me. Taako— Taako's entire life revolved around Sizzle It Up, when it was just a roadside attraction in the outskirts. When his sister was declared MIA during the war, he threw himself completely into it. It was more than just, um, some hobby, or a way to make some money. He once, uh, he once told me it was the only way he could, um, tell that his sister was still a-alive."

"Taako's sister isn't very well known, isn't that right?"

"Yeah, that's right. She, uh, got erased, sorta. By one of the relics. For a bit. When it was destroyed a year ago, she, uh, she reappeared, along with everyone declared MIA and a lot more declared dead."

"And yet she was never invited onto the show?"

"Well, when she, uh, came back, Taako gave up the show. Said he, um, wanted to be with his sister. Start his own restaurant."

"How did you feel about that, at the time?"

"I was, well, I was mad! We worked so hard to get the show on the air, and he was so willing to just… give it up! _Ten years of work!_ " The tiefling, Sazed, was beginning to lose his nervous stutter the more he spoke about his feelings, becoming more confident in the interview. Barry didn't really care too much about what the guy was talking about, but there was something itching at the back of his brain, something he was forgetting in his drug induced hazed that he couldn't quite get his hands on.

"Of course, now, I see why he wanted to give it up," Sazed sighed, rubbing one of his horns. "When you discover the long lost sister you had wasn't just some kind of hallucination, you tend to want to catch up on lost time. I just wish he had more time to spend with her."

"That's right— they both went missing week after she returned."

Sazed visibly deflated, playing with the tip of his tail. "That's right. They, um, just recently discovered and identified their bodies. The militia thinks they were being trafficked."

The interview veered off from there, discussing the late chef's life, work, and so on. Barry fell asleep at some point, waking up as an episode of Sizzle It Up was beginning— apparently they were doing a memorial marathon.

As the elf on screen talked cheerfully about the recipe he was doing, there was a knock at the door, and a downtrodden looking Angus stepped through.

"H- hello sir. Sorry I haven't been here to greet you; things have been busy at the station," Angus muttered, scuffing his shoe against the floorboards. "How are you?"

"I'm okay, Angus. Why are you so blue?"

"Um…" the boy sniffled. "They— we… we found Taako and his sister."

Taako.

Taako from TV.

Taako from TV, currently playing on TV just on the other end of the room.

The TV Angus was pointedly ignoring.

Barry cursed under his breath, scrambling for the remote to shut it off, but the damage was done. He could hear the boy detective sniffling and heaving, wiping away the tears that threatened to pour down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, sir. I- I shouldn't have bothered you."

"No, Angus, come here."

Almost immediately, Angus jumped into Barry's arms, sobbing into his chest. Barry wasn't the best at calming people down, but he tried his best, rubbing circles on his back and handing the child a tissue whenever he needed it.

"I- It's all my fault…! If I hadn't—" he hiccuped. "If I had just gone with him to the studio when he wa- was cancelling the show for good, this wouldn't have happened! He'd still be here!"

"It's not your fault, kiddo. It's nobody's fault. We can't change the past."

Angus sobbed unintelligibly into his shoulder, clutching at his t-shirt. When he finally calmed down and cleaned his face, he asked Barry to turn on the TV again, his voice barely a croak. He still cried at the sight of his mentor's face, but he managed to tell Barry stories about the elf, things that felt almost familiar, despite the fact he'd never met the man. They stayed there for a few hours, until Merle finally came and ushered the boy home before it got dark.


End file.
